Canada’s Mark Carney refers to ‘new world order’ during historic visit to China

A new strategic partnership between China and Canada could set both nations up for the “new world order”, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said during a historic trip to Beijing for trade talks.

Mr Carney arrived in Beijing on Wednesday night for a four-day visit designed to repair ties between the two nations as Canada hopes to firm up relations with countries other than the US. It’s the first visit by a Canadian leader to China in nearly a decade.

"The world has changed much since that last visit. I believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new world order,” Mr Carney said.

He told Chinese president Xi Jinping: “We’ll deliver stability, security and prosperity for people on both sides.

“It is important to start this new strategic partnership at a time of division,” Mr Carney told Mr Xi, calling for focus on areas that can bring “historic gains” for both, such as agriculture, agri-food, energy, and finance.

President Xi hailed a “turnaround of ties” between both nations, which he said was achieved since he met Mr Carney at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea late last year.

Mr Xi said he was also “pleased” with the months of cooperation between the two countries across various fields. “The healthy and stable development of China-Canada relations is conducive to world peace, stability, development, and prosperity,” Mr Xi told the visiting prime minister.

Following a meeting between two leaders, Mr Carney announced that Canada expects China to lower canola tariffs to 15 per cent by 1 March. Ottawa, in return, will allow 49,000 Chinese EVs into the Canadian market.

“It has been a historic and productive two days,” Mr Carney said, delivering a statement to journalists outside a Beijing park Friday afternoon.

He added that Canada's relationship with China was "more predictable", when asked to compare the country’s ties with the US.

However, his comment about a new world order was met with criticism from some, including Canadian MP, Blaine Calkins.

Mr Calkins posted on X: “Mark Carney is talking to the communist human rights abusing PRC regime about a "new world order"... WHAT on earth is he talking about? I didn't recognize Canada when Trudeau was the Prime Minister. I didn't think things could get any worse.”

Mr Carney clarified: “The world is still determining what that order is going to be. The multilateral system that has been developing these has been eroded, to use a polite term, or undercut.

"Like-minded countries" may start to form coalitions to collaborate on various aspects, the prime minister said. "The expectation is that, rather than being developed through multilateral organisations like the International Monetary Fund or World Trade Organisation, it's going to be coalitions for sub-sectors of the world."

Canada has long been one of Washington’s closest allies, geographically and otherwise. But Beijing is hoping that president Donald Trump’s economic and military aggression against other countries will erode that longstanding relationship.

Mr Carney has focused on trade, describing the trip to China as part of a move to forge new partnerships around the world to end Canada’s economic reliance on the American market. Mr Trump has hit Canada with tariffs on its exports to the US and suggested the vast, resource-rich country could become America’s 51st state.

More than 75 per cent of Canada’s exports go to the US, and its fraught ties with Washington have pushed Mr Carney to set a goal of reducing that reliance by doubling the country’s exports to other countries over the next decade.

The downturn in China and Canada’s relations started with the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in late 2018 at American request and was fuelled more recently by the government of former premier Justin Trudeau, which decided in 2024 to follow then US president Joe Biden’s lead in imposing a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

China retaliated for both that and a 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium with its own tariffs on Canadian exports, including canola, seafood and pork.

Following the tariff row, China’s imports from Canada fell 10.4 per cent last year to $41.7bn, according to Chinese trade data.

He also held meetings on Thursday with several leading Chinese companies, including e-commerce giant Alibaba, the state-owned oil company China National Petroleum Corp and the leading electric vehicle battery producer CATL.

Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand, who is accompanying Mr Carney on the trip, told her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that the prime minister looks forward to setting the course for the development of relations and restarting dialogue in various fields, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said.

The Canadian prime minister is expected to speak to reporters in Beijing later on Friday.